Red, Blue and Purple
by Malignant Muse
Summary: Secrets never truly make a team better, but what will happen now that the team is at its weakest while Keith finds a secret about himself even he wasn't aware of? (Please Read at Your Discretion: Minor Fluff, Klance, Gay Pairings, etc.I apologize for those of you who are deeply confused given how I have given this fic a complete overhaul in order to make a more steady final draft.)


Chapter One: Breaking Silence

It had been a little while since what had happened. Almost a few weeks now since the rescue mission to save Allura. After some scrambling, journeying through the hidden parts of the unknown and some quick thinking, one by one, the Voltron team had been reassembled.

However, that certainly didn't mean that all of their problems were whisked away into afterthoughts. They were much more than inklings as each member was heavily unsettled by the fact that they had been so easily defeated by the Galra empire. And, in fact, if it hadn't been for just the right amount of sheer luck, they may have not been able to ever see each other or use the Castle again.

From this there was a slightly unnerved feeling lingering. And for some people like Keithm this was never a feeling that you could simply shake off. And it wasn't just with that feeling of loss and defeat, only to merely slip away to save his life that ate away at him. Lance could tell that, after being with him for long enough, he knew that Keith wouldn't react like this.

The Red Paladin seemed to be locked away in his room. Like he was rotting away as a ghost for the past few days. He would lock his door, barely eat anything as he would have to have his meals brought to him, and only then a little bit of food was missing when the bowl was returned.

Allura was the most worried vocally. A small twinge of nervousness on her face felt like the only thing Lance saw her look like anymore. But even she wasn't allowed to go into Keith's room, the only one who could enter was Shiro.

Lance seemed to have the same look of worry as he would purposefully wander the halls aimlessly. He had never seen Keith be so docile and do nothing but wallow in pity. It just didn't make any sense. Keith was a serious and rather stoic type of person who was driven by impulse. His only way of dealing with stress and anything terrible in his life, from what Lance could guess, was focusing on his task at hand.

By now he should've been overworking himself, spending hours in the training room, taking on more missions and trying to strike back as hard and fast as possible. But he hadn't even _seen_ Keith let alone saw him be more active.

Lance would see Shiro leave Keith's room as he 'wandered', and walked up to him.

"Hey Shiro?" Lance asked, walking up to their leader as he firmly planted his hands in his pockets.

Shiro turned around, a small frown planted firmly upon his face before he noticed Lance. At this, Shiro gave a small, dignified and approachable look as he changed the rather somber expression he was putting off prior. Lance knew that Shiro was just trying to do his best after the events that transpired in the rescue mission to save Allura, and he understood that because he was a leader he had to be a pillar of the team. Right now, that meant a lot considering how much of a blow to everyone's moral those events were.

"Yes?" Shiro asked.

"How is he?" he replied.

Shiro looked at Lance as he stopped. He turned around to face Lance fully before he took a deep breath. As if he had been practicing his response to that question all morning, he replied with a simple, "He's fine. He just needs a little bit of time to settle. He's just a bit shaken up."

Shiro could always deflect everything, and not with denial would he put everything at rest, because a leader never lies. He was being honest entirely, Lance could be fully assured of that, but he knew that Shiro was leaving out some crucial things.

"Thanks." Lance said, a bit deflated as Shiro just nodded with a smile in response, and then walked away.

Lance waited for Shiro to leave as he awkwardly stood there, trying to retain a level of calm and casual impartiality so he wouldn't be expected. As soon as Shiro turned the corner, Lance peeked out of the corner of his eye to spot Keith's door.

He almost knocked, his fist an inch away from the door before he flinched. If Keith was like this, he wondered what kind of problem it was. It must have been personal enough that Shiro was respectful enough to keep it private between him and Keith, just as a good leader did.

Lance just stood there in front of the door, concerned but complacent as to what he should do. His thoughts raced at a hundred miles a minute. He wondered what everyone else would even say at such worried behavior. He was supposed to dislike Keith right? Or, not dislike but rather they were supposed to be in a constant competition. No, this made sense right? They were still teammates and so Keith's behavior and sudden change in mood was bad for the team.

No, they were friends weren't they? They had bonded all those teams, he had seen Keith's small, comfortable and content smile gently curl his lips like a phenomenon. It was something he saw that meant Keith trusted him. So he was doing this because they did care about each other, because….they were friends?

Lance let out a deep, frustrated exhale as he dropped his clenched fists to his sides.

What were they anyway? Why was he doing this? Why was this all so troubling? How did he feel?

"Ah!" he shouted aloud, just realizing what he had done as soon as the expression of frustration left his mouth.

He bit his lip, noticing after his rather loud groan that there was an aura of unsettling silence. It was as if the entire Cast was taken aback by his strange exclamation.

At first, there was no sound, until there was a single sound lowly resounding from Keith's door. Footsteps? He heard some light tread as most likely the red paladin made his way to his front door.

"Lance?" A voice asked from behind the metal barrier.

After hearing that though, Lance thought he would find some comfort in at least hearing from Keith again instead of an uncomfortable silence. But no, this was somehow even worse. His voice sounded rough, like he was sick and sore. But Lance knew that a little cold wouldn't prevent Keith from being even present in the lives of the rest of the castle. It wouldn't make him a leper, and it wouldn't be something Shirt would have to on his strongest of expressions for.

Lance froze at the voice, thoughts milling about in his head as another silence fell between them.

"Y-yeah?" He asked nonchalantly, trying to cough and shrug his way out of that groan.

"What are you doing?" Keith asked from behind the door, his tone a bit curious, but seemed to be mainly laced with annoyance.

Normally, Keith was easily annoyed at Lance's provoking antics, but this wasn't one of those times, he just seemed to be bitter.

"I…tripped." He said, eyeing the wall as he was thankful Keith couldn't see how many signs Lance was putting off that said he was lying.

"Ok…" Keith replied, his footsteps starting to thud lightly as he walked away from the door. "Whatever."

"W-wait!" Lance said, the thuds stopping dead in their tracks as he faced the door. "Keith...I was just wondering what was up. Is all."

"What's up?" He asked, sounding a little less bitter. His tone replaced by a bit of surprise. "Um...nothing much. Is that all?"

"Well…" Lance said, looking down at his shoes even though he wasn't staring at Keith face to face. "It's just...you've been acting so weird lately. Ever since we came back you've just been sulking around, I'm...worried about you man."

There was a bit of silence following those words as Lance started to regret it. The last thing he needed was Keith to weirdly avoid him because he felt he was coming onto him or anything.

The silence tortured him as Lance waited for Keith to reply.

"I'm good. Its ok. Thanks for asking, I guess. I'm just a little sick." he replied as Lance bit his lip.

"No you're not." He replied, starting to regret that he wasn't regretting the words that just started spilling out. "You're not sick Keith, so stop pretending to be."

Lance got no reply, nor any sound of low and small thuds. Keith was firmly planted in his tracks.

"Whats this about Keith? I haven't seen you at all in the past few days. And even when I first saw you after we got separated you were acting cagey. Is this about Haggar? Zarkon?" He pressed. "Because I don't know why you're shutting all of us out."

"Shut up Lance!" He shouted from behind the door, a low thud following his words as if his Punch to the door was an exclamation mark.

"You don't get it! You don't understand ok? It's not something you would understand anyway. So stop trying to help when you don't even know how!" He shouted, a small break in his voice resounding in Lance much more than his words did.

No way, was Keith... _crying_?

Lance processed his words as he blinked. It didn't come as a surprise that Keith's initial reaction to something that obviously this pressing was to separate himself from his team mates. Sometimes he forgot that Keith was an orphan. And that meant that he was used to being alone, being without anyone to push him down and also help him with problems that were too much for himself to solve alone.

Lance gave Keith's words some time to sink in as he heard some muffled sobs. He was trying to contain himself, trying to push everyone else away, but Lance didn't want that, at all.

"Please," Lance replied, head lowered a bit as he stared at the door, praying g Keith would let him in. "Just let me help you Keith. You can't do this by yourself."

"You don't get it! You think this is something simple. Just something you can solve in a couple seconds. It isn't something the others get. It isn't something they'll just go with." He said, some sobs mixing with his words.

"How do you know that Keith? How do you know I'll take it anyway differently than how I took Pidge being a girl? Have some faith in us Keith, we're not just some people stuck together on a spaceship fighting evil. We're friends! We're your family now!" He shouted back, huffing as he could still hear Keith choking back sobs.

"That's why I'm scared you idiot. I...I don't want to go back to that. I don't want to be alone anymore. I don't want to lose you. I don't want to lose anyone." He cried, his voice hoarse and quivering.

"Open the door." Lance said simply, his hand pressing on the metal as if he might try to tear it down.

There was just silence. Nail biting and torturous silence which encompassed the both of them.

Suddenly, there was a small creak. The door opened, sliding away to finally give Lance a full view of Keith.

The first thing he noticed about him were the tears. Streaming down his face from his pupils, which seemed to glow golden amidst an inky blackness.

He sniffled, standing ajar and broken in the doorway as he looked at Lance.

As his eyes focused amidst the black, lightless void that was Keith's bedroom, his noticed the small, or rather drastic changes to his appearance.

His skin had turned a shade of purple. Its shade being a dark yet blooming purple which seemed to not really merge with, but merely accompany the black that surrounds fed the red paladin well. He had no pupils, and on his head were a pair of twitching purple ears.

Keith was a Galra.

Lance took a long look at Keith. Noticing these changes as the other male shuddered. He was shaking in fear as Lance sighed.

He wrapped his arms around Keith as he felt his shuddering quiet down. He felt a few stray sobs erupt into his shoulder as Keith wrapped his own arms around Lance.

They just stood there, together for a second of pure, blissful and calming silence, one that was welcome this time. Mostly because there weren't many words to exactly express what could simply be said with that simple gesture of kindness when most needed. "You're fuzzy." Lance noticed, a smile crossing his face.

"Shut up." Keith replied into his shoulder, a smile crossing his as well.


End file.
